Edited: Feb 9, 2008, 4:52pm

Jun 30, 2008, 11:30am

An interesting note about Walter Scott's library while browsing William Roberts's The Book-Hunter in London, available on Project Gutenberg. On page 290 "When Sir Walter Scott lent a book, he put in its place a wooden block bearing the name of the borrower and the date of the loan." I wonder if any strange blocks of wood with names and dates found their way into the inventory of his library or estate.

Jul 17, 2008, 3:32pm

Haven't seen any blocks of wood yet - sounds like a good idea, though.

We've just passed 2000 books - probably a bit less than halfway, but it's advancing fairly fast at the moment. Scott was famous for dictating books from his sickbed - I'm currently stuck at home with a broken leg, so I've got time to move the project on a bit (though sadly I don't have a Lockhart to dictate to).

Aug 31, 2008, 7:51pm

Sep 5, 2008, 9:31am

Another problem! Does anyone have any suggestions how best to deal with the works listed on the second half of page 218 and first half of page 219 ("Shadwell, Sixteen plays by", etc.) - I assume these are individual plays rebound by/for Scott, but for once the cat. doesn't give any data about the original works, apart from the date range. In other cases of rebound works, I've catalogued them as the original works, but it looks as though the best choice here might be to treat the collections as single works and enter them manually - what do you think?

Sep 5, 2008, 1:01pm

Sep 5, 2008, 1:54pm

Yes, that's what I've done for the ones where the parts are specified (there are a lot of collections of poetry and Civil War political tracts, for instance), but for these collections of plays, for some reason, Cochrane doesn't bother to list them.

Sep 6, 2008, 5:31am

By the way - I've pruned the list of sources a bit, because the National Library of Scotland had fallen out, and I wanted to get it back above the fold. Apologies if I've removed anybody's favourite library, but I think I put back all the ones we've actually used more than once or twice.

Edited: Oct 12, 2008, 11:58am

When you get to it, we'll share A True account of the proceedings at Perth. This is usually attributed to Defoe, but see the comment in my library. I listed it as by "A rebel" as it says on the title page.

Dec 7, 2008, 3:20pm

Another milestone (or should I say: kilobook post?) - we passed 3000 books today. Frustratingly, the 3000th turned out to be another collection of popular songs by the ever-elusive John Bell of Newcastle, so it was a manual entry job!

Jan 6, 2011, 8:55am

Jan 12, 2011, 8:05am

>20 RecycledPostgrad:Good question: looks as though I haven't done anything since May, and antisyzygy last added something in September. I think we need a bit of new blood to stimulate us into action again...!